Vladimir Putin’s Russia has tripled spending on cemetery expansion schemes since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, starkly exposing the death toll his people are being forced to endure.
A report by the independent, Amsterdam-based Moscow Times newspaper indicates that Russian regions spent more than 225million rubles (almost £2million) on such projects in 2023.
The figure is double that of the previous year and nearly six times more than in 2020, prior to the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Authorities have already splashed out 136million rubles (£1.1million) during the first half of 2024.
This compares with 38million rubles (£334,000) in 2020, 124million rubles (£1.1million) in 2021 and 122million rubles (£1million) in 2022.
Additionally, journalists from the BBC Russian service and Mediazona have confirmed the identities of more than 58,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
Mortality in Russia increased by 18 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, according to state statistics agency Rosstat. Mortality rose by another 15.1 percent in 2021, reaching World War 2-era levels.
Russia confirmed more than 680,000 deaths resulting from Covid-19 during the first two years of the pandemic. A group of scientists spearheaded by the chief scientist of the Austria-based International Institute for Systems Analysis put the real toll of the pandemic in excess of one million.
However, even during the pandemic, Russia spent just half on expanding cemeteries compared with what it has paid since the start of the war.
In the two pre-pandemic years, 2018 and 2019, the regions invested 1.1billion rubles (£9.7million) in cemetery expansion.
However, Moscow undertook a large-scale renovation programme during this time. Excluding the capital region, a total of 125million (just over £1million) was spent in two years.
Official figures have not indicated a huge surge in deaths as a result of the war in Ukraine, with the number of deaths decreasing year-on-year by 22 percent in 2022 and by another 7. 6 percent in 2023, according to Rosstat.
However, independent news website Meduza analysed the federal register of inheritance cases and as a result estimated that about 120,000 people could have died in the war.
Demographer Yan Bride said the war in Ukraine is just one of the factors driving the expansion, along with an ageing population and alcohol-related deaths.
He added: “The Covid effect has passed and the intensification of deaths at younger ages has also led to a growing demand for funeral services to create new territories.”
Overall, the Khanty-Mansi autonomous district has spent more than 262million rubles (£2.3million) on the expansion of cemeteries, second on to the Moscow region.
Sergei Krivenko, director of the Citizen Army Rights human rights group, said: “For a small rural cemetery, 10-20 coffins that come from Ukraine is a lot, so they will certainly be expanded there due to the war, among other things.
“Plus, if some regions decide to bury fighters in rural cemeteries instead of within the city limits, this is another argument in favour of expansion.”
Defence HQ, the British Ministry of Defence’s official X page, yesterday posted: “Russian military casualties in May and June this year averaged more than 1,000 a day. Higher than at any other point in the war so far.
“Poorly trained Russian soldiers are being used as cannon fodder in an attempt to overwhelm strong Ukrainian defences.”